Boehringer Ingelheim expands capabilities

Boehringer Ingelheim has expanded its biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing capabilities at its cell culture and microbial sites in Biberach, Germany and in Vienna, Austria. These expansions will enhance state-of-the art cell line development with the proprietary BI-HEX® high expression system and microbial strain as well as process development services for the contract manufacturing business. The investment of approximately 17 million Euros included the expansion of Boehringer Ingelheim’s current GMP (good manufacturing practice) cell banking, process science, cell line development and quality laboratories, all equipped with the latest technologies.

With this new set up Boehringer Ingelheim can offer highly competitive services including it’s newly established ‘Lean to Clinic’ program for monoclonal antibody projects, in which drug substance may be delivered after only 13 months for clinical studies. In the microbial business the increased ressources will strengthen Boehringer Ingelheim’s proprietary technologies like the high yield and high purity pDNA platform and will also support the technology collaborations with Pfenex Inc on the Pseudomonas technology and with VTU Technology on the Pichia expression technology.

“The expansion has been taylor-suited to fully meet our customer demands in cell culture and microbial process science, especially for our rapidly expanding pre-clinical project portfolio with biotech companies”, commented Dr. Dorothee Ambrosius, Senior Vice President Biopharmaceuticals Global Process Science at Boehringer Ingelheim. “This is another milestone within our contract manufacturing strategy securing technology leadership and towards increased flexibility and customer orientation.”